Assignment Task:
According to Rich Martin, in his article Police Corruption: An Analytical Look into Police Ethics, states the following seven characteristics are needed to possess integrity:
1. Prudence: the ability to discern between conflicting virtues and decide the best action to take.
2. Trust: loyalty and truthfulness in relationships between officers and citizens, fellow officers, and supervisors.
3. Effacement of self-interests: officers may exploit their authority to further themselves without this.
4. Courage: the mean between cowardice and foolhardiness.
5. Intellectual honesty: not knowing something and being humble and courageous enough to admit it.
6. Justice: not in its normal context, but, rather, adjusting what is owed to a particular citizen even when it may contradict what is strictly owed.
7. Responsibility: intending to do the right thing, clearly understanding what the right thing is, and being fully aware of other alternatives that may exist; taking responsibility rather than finding excuses for mistakes or poor judgment.
Corruption within law enforcement, or any other given organization, is a cancer and can ruin any great organization if allowed to fester. The number one factor causing police corruption lies in poor leadership within a police department. Leaders are the backbone of any department for they serve as the role models for the younger generation and must lead by example demonstrate the proper way to be a peace officer and ultimately commit themselves to upholding the law and protecting the rights of the people they have sworn to protect. Within any organization, a leader doesn't have to be one with strips on their sleeves or bars on their collars, it can be a simple patrol cop with years of experience willing to lend a hand and teach the newer generation how to properly investigate crimes and police their streets.
Being a reliable leader means incorporating all seven characteristics described by Martin and instilling those characteristics to the next generation of officers who will assume the roles and responsibilities of leaders once their time is up and choose to leave the profession behind.